Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

You must pardon my book reviews, for they are not reviews, but love letters. I know not where the love ends and the letters begin.

Back in 2013, I'd been living the life of a happy imposter. I didn't have cause to complain. I had a job that I liked. I had time enough for myself: to cook, to watch shit, to go out, to while it all away. I had it all. Or so I thought.

But I knew I was walking around with a hole that nothing could fit or fill; not wanderlust, not discography or filmography. My seemingly carefree fabric was coming apart at the seams. My bachelor's quarters were actually turning into bachelor's quarters. Boxes, books, pots and pans were taking over. I didn't stop buying books though. I couldn't. It was another matter that I'd stopped reading. I'd not read for almost 7 years.

And then like in the books, there was a twist.

I was cleaning up my place when something fell from the attic along with other odds and ends, and hit me right on the head. It didn’t hurt. Not at first. It was only a slim, 160-paged book called Fahrenheit 451.

I picked it up on a whim. This was a book that described the end of the book. The world has come to this: Books are banned, and anyone in possession of books will be burned along with their possessions. Firemen, who put out fires, now burn books with glee.

This was enough to scare the bejesus out of me. I scrambled, I dug, I rummaged, and I took stock of all of my books. And then I read and I read. There was a visceral urgency to read and not worry about trifles like working or cooking or dating. I had to read or I would die.

They were burning. The books were burning, and I was burning with them. I’d been craving and thirsting for a long-forgotten poison, and I’d found it. Like Guy Montag, our hapless fireman, finds it for himself one day. He has one job: find books and destroy them. He is good at it. He has a real knack for it. Until he discovers that he has fallen in love with the written word, the printed word. He has fallen in love with what he was out to destroy.

And then it hit me. 160 pages later.

I'd been walking around with a book-shaped hole in my life.